ur water from it, and then take
a sharp knife, and turning the sprout end of the corn upward, with the
point of your knife take the back part of the husk off from it, and yet
leaving a kind of husk on the corn, or else it is marr'd; and then cut
off that sprouted end (I mean a little of it) that the white may
appear, and so pull off the husk on the cloven side (as I directed you)
and then cutting off a very little of the other end, that so your hook
may enter, and if your hook be small and good, you will find this to be
a very choice bait either for Winter or Summer, you sometimes casting a
little of it into the place where your flote swims.

And to take the _Roch_ and _Dace_, a good bait is the young brood of
Wasps or Bees, baked or hardened in their husks in an Oven, after the
bread is taken out of it, or on a fire-shovel; and so also is the thick
blood of _Sheep_, being half dryed on a trencher that you may cut it
into such pieces as may best fit the size of your hook, and a little
salt keeps it from growing black, and makes it not the worse but
better; this is taken to be a choice bait, if rightly ordered.

There be several Oiles of a strong smel that I have been told of, and
to be excellent to tempt fish to bite, of which I could say much, but I
remember I once carried a small bottle from Sir _George Hastings_ to
Sir _Henry Wotton_ (they were both chimical men) as a great present;
but upon enquiry, I found it did not answer the expectation of Sir
_Henry_, which with the help of other circumstances, makes me have
little belief in such things as many men talk of; not but that I think
fishes both smell and hear (as I have exprest in my former discourse)
but there is a mysterious knack, which (though it be much easier then
the Philosophers-Stone, yet) is not atainable by common capacities, or
else lies locked up in the braine or brest of some chimical men, that,
like the _Rosi-crutions_, yet will not reveal it. But I stepped by
chance into this discourse of Oiles, and fishes smelling; and though
there might be more said, both of it, and of baits for _Roch_ and
_Dace_, and other flote fish, yet I will forbear it at this time, and
tell you in the next place how you are to prepare your tackling:
concerning which I will for sport sake give you an old Rhime out of an
old Fish-book, which will be a part of what you are to provide.

My rod, and my line, my flote and my lead,
My hook, & my plummet, my whetstone & knife,